英语演讲：小说写作的指路明灯

The Lamps of Fiction

Goldwin Smith

Ruskin has lighted seven lamps of Architecture to guide the steps of the architect in the worthy practice of his art. It seems time that lamps should be lighted to guide the steps of the writer of fiction. Think what the influence of novelists now is, and how some of them use it! Think of the multitudes who read nothing but novels; and then look into the novels which they read! I have seen a young man's whole library consisting of thirty or forty of those paper-bounded volumes, which are the bad tobacco of the mind. In England, I looked over three railway bookstalls in one day. There was hardly a novel by an author of any repute on one of them. There were heaps of nameless garbage, commended by tasteless, flaunting woodcuts, the promise of which was no doubt well kept within. Fed upon such food daily, what will the mind of a nation be? I say that there is no flame at which we can light the Lamp of Fiction purer or brighter than the genius of him in honor to whose memory we are assembled here today. Scott does not moralize. Heaven be praised that he does not. He does not set a moral object before him, nor lay down moral rules. But his heart, brave, pure, and true, is a law to itself; and by studying what he does, we may find the law for all who follow his calling. If seven lamps have been lighted for architecture, Scott will light as many for fiction.

I. The Lamp of Reality. The novelist much ground his work in faithful study of human nature....For some writers, and writers dear to the circulating libraries too, might, for all that appears in their works, lie in bed all day, and write by night under the excitement of green tea. Creative art, I suppose they call this, and it is creative with a vengeance. Not so, Scott. The human nature which he paints, he has seen in all its phases, gentle and simple, in burgher and shepherd. Highlander, Lowlander, Borderer, and Islesman; he had come into close contact with it; he had opened it to himself by the talisman of his joyous and winning presence; he had studied it thoroughly with a clear eye and an all-embracing heart. When his scenes are laid in the past, he has honestly studied history....

II. The Lamp of Ideality. The materials of the novelist must be real; they must be gathered from the field of humanity by his actual observation. But they must pass through the crucible of the imagination; they must be idealized...Of course, this power of idealization is the great gift of genius. It is that which distinguishes Homer, Shakespeare, and Walter Scott from ordinary man.... Scott's character are never monsters or caricatures. They are full of nature; but it is universal nature. Therefore they have their place in the universal heart, and will keep that place forever. And mark that even in his historical novels he is still ideal...

III. The Lamp of Impartiality. The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party. He must see everywhere the good that is mixed with evil, the evil that is mixed with good. And this he will not do, unless his heart be right. It is in Scott's historical novels that his impartiality is most severely tried and is most apparent, though it is apparent in all his works...

IV. The Lamp of Impersonality. Personality is lower than partiality...Novelists, however, often debase fiction by obtruding their personal vanities, favoritisms, fanaticisms, and antipathies...Not only is Scott not personal, but we cannot conceive his being so. We cannot think possible that he should degrade his art by the indulgence of egotism, or crotchets, or party piques. Least of all can we think it possible that his high and gallant nature should use art as a cover for striking a foul blow.

V. The Lamp of Purity....Impure novels have brought and bringing much misery on the world. Scott's purity is not that of cloistered innocence and inexperience, it is the manly purity of one who had seen the world ,mingled with men of the world, known evil as well as good; but who, being a true gentleman, abhorred filth, and teaches us to abhor it too.

VI. The Lamp of Humanity... Scott would have recoiled from the blood as well as from the ordure, he would have allowed neither to have defiled his noble page... He knew that a novelist had no right even to introduce the terrible except for the purpose of exhibiting human heroism, developing character, awakening emotions which, when awakened, dignity and save from harm. It is want of genius and of knowledge of their craft that drives novelists to outrage humanity with horrors....

VII. The Lamp of Chivalry. Of this briefly. Let the writer of fiction give us humanity in all its phases, the comic as well as the tragic, the ridiculous as well as the sublime, but let him not lower the standard of character or the aim of life....Scott, like Shakespeare, wherever the thread of his fiction may lead him, always keeps before himself and us the highest ideal which he knew, the ideal of a gentleman. If any one says there are narrow bounds wherein to confine fiction, I answer there has been room enough within them for the highest tragedy, the deepest pathos, the broadest humor, the widest range of character, the most moving incident that the world has ever enjoyed....